Wright House Rescue: A Family`s Quest Finds Tragedy, Uncertainty

November 10, 1985|By Dylan Landis.

The day after Christmas last year, free-lance writer Chris Fecht flicked off the television news in Beaver Dam, Wis., and phoned his mother in Los Angeles. ``Guess what, Mom,`` he said gleefully, ``there`s a Frank Lloyd Wright house for sale in Madison for $1.``

``I don`t believe it,`` Pat Drennan Fecht said. ``What do you have to do to get it?``

``Well,`` said Chris, ``you have to move the house.``

Mrs. Fecht was tempted. She had grown up in Oak Park, just around the corner from Wright`s studio and home, and she was proud of her collection of Wright books and memorabilia. ``Frank Lloyd Wright is my hobby,`` she says.

``I feel like I know him personally.``

The house for sale was called Skyview. It was a solar prefabricated structure, built for a prominent Madison physician and friend of Wright`s when Chris, 33, was just a toddler. Now it was empty, and a developer had plans for the site. To rescue Skyview, to own it, to live in it, was more than mother and son could resist.

``Find out what it will cost to move,`` urged Mrs. Fecht, ``and let`s do it.``

They did. Skyview was carved into thirds, hauled out of Madison and set down again in Beaver Dam, where it looked out over fields and farmland and drew hundreds of curious onlookers.

Late in June, Mrs. Fecht flew out to help Chris reassemble the house. Her husband Leo soon joined her, and they moved in with Pat`s 90-year-old father, who lived in town. They also invited local college student Albert Zibbell whom Chris had hired to live with them.

Chris, however, slept on a mattress at his unfinished house. He stopped his free-lance writing and set out to write a book about Skyview, typing long entries into a journal that he kept in a home computer.

Every day he worked on the site. He nailed up insulation, taught himself plumbing, hammered pieces of cedar on the roof. His overalls faded in the sun, and his blond hair grew tousled, and he was adopted by a black-and-white cat who turned up out of nowhere in spring.

Despite Skyview`s progress, Chris seemed to grow increasingly moody. One day, inspired, he wrote in his journal, ``I feel that the spirit of Frank Lloyd Wright is reaching out to me.`` Other days, recalled his mother, ``He would fly off the handle quite easily.`` Costs had soared since his first estimate of $70,000, and Chris, who was doing much of the job himself, found himself arguing with workers.

``It was like someone was dragging an anchor,`` Mrs. Fecht said, ``to keep him from finishing this thing.``

On Friday, July 26, Chris`s parents and Zibbell drove off at 8 p.m. to a restaurant in town. Chris had not spoken all evening, except to say that he would stay home and cook a steak. He was missing when they returned.

It was Zibbell who saw him first, in the basement. Mrs. Fecht heard him cry, ``Oh, my God, Chris,`` and then, ``Don`t come down here,`` and finally a thump when the body was cut down.

There was no note. It still is not clear, to the Fechts or to others who worked on Skyview, what precipitated the suicide.

After the funeral, the Fechts sat down with Martin Sell, the architect who had worked on Skyview`s reconstruction. ``I`m going to finish the house,`` Mrs. Fecht vowed.

But no work has been done. The garage remains in pieces, and wind rushes through empty door frames. The house is unheated and unwired. Piles of stones sit in back, waiting to be formed into chimney and walls.

To pay for Skyview`s move, Mrs. Fecht had mortgaged her father`s house and business, raising $75,000. Sell said the Fechts can ``make the house livable`` for $110,000, which Chris`s estimate supported. An independent appraiser hired by the Fechts puts the figure closer to $170,000. Either figure is more than the family can pay.

``If Chris had had any idea it would have cost this much,`` said Mrs. Fecht, ``we would never have attemped it.``

Now the Fechts hope to find a buyer for Skyview, possibly among the handful of groups and individuals who competed with Chris for the house.

``If I can`t sell it,`` Mrs. Fecht said, ``I can`t leave it out there in the country all winter. It will have to be closed up or torn down.``

It has been 10 months since Chris plunked down his dollar on a real estate broker`s desk and walked out with the deed for Skyview. In that time about half a dozen people found themselves deeply involved with the man and the house. Sell was one of them.

Sell had worked on the Skyview acquisition from the beginning, taking hundreds of elaborate measurements and drawing up new plans. The Chris Fecht that Sell knew was private, but warm. Two days before Chris died, the architect had taken him to the hospital where Sell`s wife had just delivered a son.

``Here,`` said Chris, handing her a bit of cedar from Skyview`s new roof. ``I brought you a piece of the house.`` Then he kissed her on the forehead and said goodbye. Sell still wonders how final Chris meant his words to be.